COLUMBUS, Ohio — Philly Brown could see the numbers and had watched enough game tape not to need any reminders about which area of his game most needed work.
The Ohio State coaching staff wasn’t going to let him off that easy, though.
In public through the media last season, coach Urban Meyer was cracking jokes and encouraging him to break a tackle once in a while.
When strolling through the practice facility within earshot of Zach Smith in the spring, his position coach made sure to raise his voice enough to reference his reception total compared to a relative lack of yardage and touchdowns.
And while the senior receiver suggested there wasn’t all that much criticism coming his way behind closed doors, the message was clear to Brown either way as he prepared for his final season with the Buckeyes. As the most reliable target on the perimeter, the ball was likely to keep coming his way — as long as was able to start doing more with it once it was safely in his hands.
“I already knew it was something I had to work on after watching the film,” Brown said. “[Strength] coach Mickey [Marotti] and I sat down and watched it, identified the problems, so we took care of it this offseason, hit the weight room hard — we got it done, so it should be better.
“It was a couple things , but I’ll keep them to myself. They’re secrets.”
Brown might be keeping the corrections under wraps for now, but the main issues have been pretty much out in the open dating back to spring practice as he and Smith went to work trying to turn his pile of receptions into a mountain of yards.
He finished last season leading the unbeaten Buckeyes in both catches and yardage, but his 60 receptions produced only 669 yards — the latter a number teammate Devin Smith nearly matched with half as many grabs.
Continue reading this article at ESPN: Philly Brown eager to find more yards
